Department of Philosophy Newsletter Spring 2013, No
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Department of Philosophy Newsletter Spring 2013, No. 46 From The Chair’s Desk This has been a good year with a nearly full very lively, crowded sessions of the Philosophy contingent of faculty, although we have missed Council. Two CWP awards went to students who our once and future Chair, Randy Curren. We had written papers in philosophy courses—the welcomed two new faculty members, Alison winner was Conor Dwyer Reynolds (“An Illusory Peterman and Brett Sherman to the department, Eclipse: The State as a Mediate Variable in the who are wonderful in every way. All year the Conflict Between Science and Religion”) and philosophy corridor of Lattimore hummed with Jessica Sheng (“The Epistemological Question: the buzz of conversation and even laughter. Ralf Mind but no Matter?”) was one of two honorable Meerbote has retired but happily has not mentions. Our administrator Amy Bray did her disappeared from the hall. His retirement, usual amazing job of keeping all of us on track nevertheless, gave us an occasion for having a and on time. conference on Kantian Studies. His former students gave excellent papers and then after John Bennett Retires serious debates about fine points of interpretation, we all ate and drank into the night. Alas, we will John Bennett, Senior Lecturer of Philosophy, first have a second retirement this year: John, you will joined our department in 1985-86 as a Post- be sorely missed. doctoral Fellow. Fortunately he has remained on our faculty ever since. He earned his Ph.D. from The business of the department went on the University of Michigan in 1975. Besides the seamlessly. Undergraduates were well advised by UR, he has also taught at UCLA, Michigan and William FitzPatrick and graduate students by Earl Cornell. In our department, he has not only taught Conee. Alyssa Ney once more organized a numerous undergraduates over the years, he has dynamite colloquium series. The graduate also directed Honor theses and served on admissions committee (Brad, Alyssa and Alison) Graduate Examining Committees. For years, John did a great job recruiting new students. The has also been the department’s computer guru. graduate students hosted the 7th Biennial Rochester Graduate Student Epistemology Conference. The undergraduates met weekly for 1 Inside this issue: Essay Prize, Colloquia 2012 -13 Events 2 Faculty News 3 Graduate Student News 4 “Dedicated to the Truth, Undergraduate Alumni News 5 the Half- Truth and the Occasional Graduate Alumni News 6 Bald-Faced Lie” Bibliography 9 2014 Colin and Ailsa Turbayne International Berkeley Essay Competition The late Professor and Mrs. Colin Turbayne established a biennial International Berkeley Essay Prize competition in conjunction with the Philosophy Department at the University of Rochester. The 2012 winner was “Berkeley's Conception of Causal Power”, by Thomas Curtin, a recent PhD graduate from Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. The next deadline for submitting papers is November 1, 2014. The winner will be announced March 1, 2015 and will receive a prize of $2,000. Copies of the winning essays will be sent to the George Berkeley Library Study Center located in Berkeley’s home in Whitehall, Newport, RI. Submissions should be sent to: Chair, Department of Philosophy, University of Rochester, PO Box 270078, Lattimore Hall 532, Rochester, NY 14627-0078 or [email protected]. Please see our website for details regarding essay specifications. 2012-13 Events th COLLOQUIA SERIES 7 BIENNIAL GRADUATE EPISTEMOLOGY CONFERENCE Susanna Siegel (Harvard ) Michael Huemer (Colorado) Erin Taylor (Cornell) Trent Dougherty (Baylor) Shamik Dasgupta (Princeton) John Bennett (Rochester) THE HUMANITIES PROJECT: OBSERVATION Alan Baker (Swarthmore) Peter Dear (Cornell) Barry Lam (Vassar) Jimena Canales (Harvard) Alan Haĵek (Australian National) Lorraine Datson (Max Planck Institute for History of Science) Brad Inwood (Toronto) James Dreier (Brown) 2 associated professorial chair in a research center FACULTY NEWS at the University of Birmingham, where I’ll be in residence four weeks each year beginning this John Bennett May. I have limited my travel in the interest of writing this year, but spoke last July at a I am retiring. I want to express my immense conference in Berlin, at a workshop in Syracuse gratitude to all those, present and past, staff, in August, at an environmental studies faculty, and students, who have made my time at conference in Oakland in October, in the School the University of Rochester so wonderful. Many of Social Science at the IAS in November, at thanks to you all. NYU in the Environmental Studies program and at meetings in Oxford, in March. In June I have Noell Birondo invited lectures at a conference on moral education hosted by the philosophy department (Ph.D. Notre Dame) joined the department in the at Northwestern, a conference on the intellectual fall of 2012, having taught previously at the virtues and education at Loyola Marymont in University of Arizona and at Pomona College. Los Angeles, and at the Fifth International Self- His main areas of interest lie in ethical theory Determination Theory Conference at the UR, th and ancient Greek philosophy. Recently he June 27-30 . published “Rationalism in Ethics” in the International Encyclopedia of Ethics (Wiley- Richard Dees Blackwell Publishing, 2013) and had approved for publication a “Review of Oxford Studies in This year, I became chair of the Steering Normative Ethics, Vol. 1,” forthcoming in the Committee for Public Health-Related Majors, a Journal of Moral Philosophy. program begun in 2009 that includes majors in Epidemiology, in Health Policy, in Health, Earl Conee Behavior, and Society, and in Bioethics. As part of my many administrative duties for the This past academic year I have participated in program, I supervise students doing honors the usual combination of teaching, research, and research and students who participate in health service, culminating in a newsletter entry. This sciences internships in Europe. entry has the usual variation in content as a result of the addition of a further note about that. My research continues to focus on transplant It would be unusual not to add a bit more, and I issues and newborn screening, as well as on have. It would be unusual not to end it about broader issues about harming the dead. I also here, and I have. continue to work on many ethics committees at the hospital and elsewhere, and I have now Randall Curren become a part of the regular faculty in the Division of Medical Humanities and Bioethics at After nine consecutive years as department the Medical Center. chair, I have been taking a break and enjoying my first research leave since 1999, as the Robert William FitzPatrick and Ginny Loughlin Founders Circle Member for 2012-13 at the Institute for Advanced Study Starting this summer I will be joining Ethics as in Princeton. The IAS is a lovely and nearly an associate editor, which will be a lot of work carefree place to live for a year, and it has been but of a very rewarding kind. I continue to serve wonderful to have the freedom to connect as undergraduate adviser for the department, and thoughts day after day and write for long chaired the committee formed this year to stretches with little distraction. Far and away overhaul the university’s student code of the largest distraction has been the offer of the conduct, which was very interesting. My first professorship established by the Royal research has continued to focus on defending Institute of Philosophy in London and an ethical realism against evolutionary debunking 3 arguments, with presentations on this topic at Brett Sherman Purdue, Toronto, UNC and UNF (a keynote for their student conference, at the invitation of This past year was like a ribbon of joy wrapped recent graduate alumnus Jon Matheson), and two around a butterfly of wonder. Attached to the forthcoming publications on the topic. I’ve also butterfly's legs are little buckets of inspiration been working more on the Doctrine of Double that serve to strengthen its wings of motivation. Effect, a critique of neo-Kantian Constitutivism, With an unyielding perseverance, the butterfly and development of robust non-naturalist ethical soars into the forever unknowable future, its realism. I’ll be doing a workshop this summer at bravery and its beneficence a guiding beacon of the University of Michigan on morality and the determined self-approbation. Also, I co-edited a empirical sciences. book on metasemantics and wrote a paper on the semantics and pragmatics of `hopefully'. Alyssa Ney This was another productive and fun academic GRADUATE NEWS year. My edited volume on the wave function finally appeared, allowing me to get back to working on some topics in metaphysics and Matthew Frise philosophical methodology that are dear to my heart. Some old papers finally appeared in print, This year I organized the 7th Biennial Rochester I gave some talks, and the paper Kate Phillips Graduate Epistemology Conference, completed and I wrote after my metaphysics of quantum my writing seminar, presented at the Pacific mechanics class was accepted. I really enjoyed APA, and had my paper "The Mad, Bad, or God my graduate seminar on introspection. I am Argument Explained" accepted for publication looking forward to the beautiful Rochester in Religious Studies. All the classes I took and summer and reading groups on metaphysics and sat in on were excellent. This was my second the philosophy of space-time. and last year as Graduate Student Representative to the faculty. Currently I'm putting together a Alison Peterman dissertation proposal on memory and epistemic justification. It's been a great third year! My first year has been great, and I am so delighted to have such wonderful colleagues and Jarod Sickler students. I have been working on a variety of mostly Spinoza-related articles, one of which "My first year in the program has been great, was published in the December 2012 issue of the and our transition to Rochester life has been Leibniz Review.